This one is shorter and punchier, less epic realism and more documentary. Just the real grunts, groans and cowbells as they occurred during the tail end of the Men’s Masters A race and then the surge from the Men’s A and Singlespeed races.

I’ve got to stop staying up so late messing with this stuff - ended up outputting about 4 different versions of the thing to try to keep the size down and the quality up. Learned a bit in the process, hopefully. But, it hurts to see the original, very clean images get scrunched down into something that fits through the intertubes.

Of course, I wouldn’t be staying up so late if I just picked up quickly after word and headed straight home. As it was, I just wanted to head the long way ’round on Wednesday night. On Tuesday, I’d been glued to the tube, watching the micro-parsing and projections, dead-air filling and conjecture until just after 8 pm. Watched the speeches, was appalled that the crowds for the conceeding candidate didn’t demonstrate the grace to restrain their booing at the name of Barrack, then found tears in my eyes during the speech that followed from the winner.

During my admittedly short time here (y’know on the planet), I’ve seldom heard political speeches that spelled out challenges in a way that was deeply inspiring. It has been seldom that a political figure speaks to an audience as though they are adults. I found that refreshing and maybe a bit scary - maybe in the way before you start a race. You know not everything will be easy, and there will be times when you just want to pull up and drift off the course. But, that’s being written two nights later now, and maybe I’m just trying to draw a tenuous metaphor.

After the high of Tuesday night, I wanted to ponder all of that from the solitude of the road.

Plus the fact I’m superstitious as hell about being in auto traffic during the first week following the Daylight Savings change. Either folks are up an hour earlier and not adapting well, or they are plunged into darkness before they are ready for it and react badly.

And my indirect route leads me quite away from the main vehicular path. Out past the homes and around the point, beyond street lamps and such. Little wind meant a calm bay and clearness in the air. I clicked down the power on the headlight, looked into the darkness and pedaled my way towards hope.